In the Georgia Museum of Art’s newest exhibition, “Through Lines,”(opens in new tab) artist Nancy Baker Cahill proves that augmented reality (AR) belongs in the realm of fine art. The artist’s first solo museum exhibition tackles important topics such as perceptions of reality, artificial intelligence and climate change’s impact on the environment through works that use paper, drawing, animation, digital manipulation and AR.
The exhibition occupies three different areas of the museum. The Dorothy Alexander Roush Gallery includes works from Baker Cahill’s “Slipstream” series, drawings that have undergone radical transformations. Baker Cahill(opens in new tab) creates elegantly rendered drawings using the traditional mediums of paper and graphite. She then rips the drawings into pieces and reconstructs them into sculptural forms. The process then enters the digital realm, as the paper sculptures are transformed and animated into videos. The process then comes full circle as frames from the animation are captured and translated back into prints on paper. The resulting compositions are filled with a sense of movement and life as they return to their original forms irrevocably changed.
Using this method of construction, deconstruction and recreation, Baker Cahill redefines contemporary art for a modern age. Not only do digital and traditional art coexist in her exhibition, but they grow and evolve together in ways that expand cultural conceptions about art and adaptation. Her exploration of simultaneously evolving digital and traditional mediums sparks viewers to consider the role of augmentation in their perception of everyday reality.
In the Alonzo and Vallye Dudley Gallery, visitors are fully immersed in Baker Cahill’s videos. Floor-to-ceiling projections create the sense that observers are in the room with a living presence. Colors and shapes expand and morph into each other, re-creating Baker Cahill’s creative process of building and destroying over and over again. Heightened by an accompanying soundscape by Anna Luisa Petrisko, the unceasing movement of the animation evokes visceral feelings. The work invites reflection and serves as an experience that blurs the line between what is real and what is augmented.
“My hope is that the wall, the surface for projection, dissolves and becomes a living, breathing hybrid entity, forged of light, graphite, paper, electricity, hardware and software,” said Baker Cahill, “and that for a moment, we are spared invective and invited into communal transfiguration.”
The largest artwork included in “Through Lines” is more than meets the eye as, initially, nothing meets the eye at all. “Margin of Error” makes the invisible visible as an animated installation that can be viewed through Baker Cahill’s app, 4th Wall. Available for Android or iPhone, the free app allows visitors to see a swirling, gargantuan cloud hovering in the museum’s Jane and Harry Willson Sculpture Garden.
Baker Cahill’s public AR art installations make visible “hyperobjects,” as seen in “Margin of Error.” As defined by philosopher Timothy Morton, hyperobjects are concepts of such enormous scale and substance that they often extend beyond conventional human understanding or awareness. The outdoor experience of the AR work nudges viewers past the boundaries of the museum’s walls and, with the cloud of chaos above, it’s hard not to think about the looming consequences of global warming. At times, the animation can look like broken glass or discarded plastic, and viewers can easily find themselves reflecting on human impact on our environment, even as we rapidly approach the “point of no return” for climate change.
“Margin of Error” was first installed above the Salton Sea in the Coachella Valley, in California, a popular festival venue and destination. Coachella’s land, air and waterways have suffered a repeated cycle of environmental abuse. Water in the valley has become toxic, and evaporation has caused these toxins to become airborne. These disastrous outcomes negatively impact communities in the southern region of California. By reimagining “Margin of Error” and placing it in the museum’s sculpture garden, the exhibition underscores the imminent possibilities of inhospitable environments for other areas across the U.S as human-created climate and ecological disasters compound. Through the use of AR, Baker Cahill creates an installation that leaves no physical trace. The animation serves as a commentary on humanity’s detrimental effects on the environment.
Unlike the traditional experience of viewing art in a museum, visitors physically interact with the installation. “One of the great affordances of the medium,” Baker Cahill said, “is the ways in which you become a part of it.” Having “Margin of Error” visible only through a screen speaks to the fascinating ways that technology has changed how we go about daily life. Just because you can’t see something doesn’t mean it isn’t there.
The seed was planted for organizing Baker Cahill’s exhibition when Kathryn Hill, the museum’s associate curator of modern and contemporary art, met the artist in January 2021. From the onset of the project, Hill said she was eager to show students at the University of Georgia and the larger public how hyperobjects, augmented reality and art come together, simultaneously underscoring the ways in which artists, museums and educational spaces can be activators of public discourse on the problems impacting communities.
“My hope is that [this exhibition] allows students to see new possibilities of experimentation and art activism for their own work,” said Hill. “For the public, I hope that it helps demystify the process of creating digital and immersive art like Nancy’s. Museums have been slow to embrace and celebrate new media arts like digital-born images, video and augmented reality. It can be difficult to engage with new media art because the visual language and process appears to be different from what you see in traditional museum spaces. By showing ‘Through Lines’ at the museum, we can begin to contextualize these emergent technologies within the history of art and bring forth deeper conversations about hyper objects and art activism in educational and museum spaces.”
Be sure to catch “Through Lines” before it closes May 19.
Authored by:
Adeline Bryant
